What does truly exist?
Making sense of the reality
Subject literature and useful sources
 Nigel Warburton, Philosophy.The Basics – very simple
one
 Reason and Responsibility. Readings in Some Basic
Problems of Philosophy, (ed.) J. Feinberg, R. ShaferLandau, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003 or
other editions.
 The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, S. Blackburn,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
 http://plato.stanford.edu/ Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy
Philosophy – main branches
 Ontology (Gr. Onthos – being, that what exists), the
philosophical study of being; it studies the concepts that
relate to becoming, existence, reality; also the problem of
subject and object, time and space, necessity and
possibility
 Metaphysics = ontology + the assumption of a
transcendent reality and the claim that everything that
exists serves the general, higher purpose
 Epistemology (Gr. Episteme – knowledge) the study of
the nature of knowledge, justification and the rationality of
belief
First quests for principles - presocratics
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Physis – nature, physical reality
Arché - principle
Logos – logic,order
Kosmos – the universe where
chaos was replaced logos, i.e.
rational order)
First ontological theory of reality
took the element of water as an
arche– essential element of reality
and source of life; (Tales of Miletus
VII/VI B.C.)
From mythical or magical to rational
The infinite as source and principle
 Apeiron – “that which has
no boundaries, the
boundless, unlimited”;
Anaximander (VI BC)
 Everything arises from
the infinite
 that process is cyclic,
everlasting, timeless and
aimless
All is number
 The first principle is definite;
everything has its boundaries,
proportions (Gr. peras – limit,
boundary)
 Pythagoras (VI/V BC) and
Pythagoreans
 Everything in the universe can
be described/represented by a
proportion; „all is number”, all
things are numbers”
Exception from the principle of
definite: infinite numbers (mad
numbers!)
Life is energy
 All things are an exchange of fire
 Heraclitus (VI BC), "everything
flows"; “one cannot step twice
into the same river”
 Change as necessary element of
reality
 Identity, sameness exists only in
our thoughts
 The basic law of logic A=A exists
only as an abstract idea
perceived by our minds; one
cannot encounter sameness in
empirical reality
Unity of being and thinking
 Parmenides – the founding father
of ontology (VI BC) and Eleatics
 Being (that what exists) as the
broadest philosophical category
and concept
 Being cannot be born and cannot
die.
 It is one, unchanging and perfect.
 It doesn’t move and it cannot be
divided
Sources of rationalism
 „neither could you know what-is-
not (for that is impossible), nor
could you point it out”
 „whatever can be spoken or
thought of necessarily is” (On
Nature)
 Knowledge about reality is
independent from the content of
sensory data
 Being is intelligible
 Intelligibility – what can be
comprehended by the human
mind
Theory of ideas – an ambitious ontological project
 Plato (428/427-348 BC)
 Ideas (Gr. form) – entities that
are eternal, changeless, and in
some sense paradigmatic for
the structure and character of
our world.
 Idea – Thought - Matter
Idea of Goodness
 Idea of Goodness as the
highest principle
 Metaphor of the sun
 Metaphor of the cave
 Truth – Good – Beauty
 „patricide of Parmenides”
– non-being is possible
as a negation of being
 A and non-A; dialectics
and dialectical method
Excerpt from Plato’s Republic
 This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear
Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is
the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you
will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey
upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual
world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I
have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows.
But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world
of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is
seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred
to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right,
parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world,
and the immediate source of reason and truth in the
intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who
would act rationally, either in public or private life must
have his eye fixed."
Reality does not conform to general principles
 Sofists’ relativism and
skepticism
 Protagoras V BC: "Man
is the measure of all
things: of things which
are, that they are, and of
things which are not, that
they are not"
 Gorgias of Leontini V/IV
BC – argument „on the
non-existent”
Arguments of Gorgias
 1. Nothing exists.
 2. Even if something
exists, nothing can be
known about it.
 3. Even if something can
be known about it,
knowledge about it can’t
be communicated to
others.
 4. Even if can be
communicated it cannot
be understood.
 „How can anyone
communicate the idea
of color by means of
words since the ear
does not hear colors
but only sounds?”
Metaphysics - a waste of time?
 Contingency of reality
(e.g. Richard Rorty)
 Metaphysics is a waste of
time
 Better to think about
practical problems, e.g.
society, politics.